Toni Kukoc

Bulls.com

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today that Toni Kukoč will be inducted into the Class of 2021 by the Hall of Fame's International Committee.

A native of Split, Croatia, Kukoč was selected 29th overall by the Chicago Bulls in the 1990 NBA Draft, but played three more seasons overseas before joining the Bulls in the 1993-94 season. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team that year, and he played seven of his 13 NBA seasons in a Bulls uniform (1993-2000). During that time, he was a vital contributor on three Championship teams (1996, 1997, 1998) and was named Sixth Man of the Year in 1995-96.

"When Toni joined the Bulls in 1993, he had already established himself as one of the best players ever to come out of Europe," said Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. "While we knew what kind of player he was, we were not sure how he would adapt to the NBA. He quickly proved that his game was suited to play with the best players in the world. He was a star player on his championship teams in Europe, and one of the best sixth men in the NBA on our second three-peat championship teams in Chicago. There are not many players in the history of the game who have excelled at the level that Toni has. Congratulations on this very well-deserved honor."

Kukoč began his storied international pro career at age 17. In addition to his NBA Championships with Chicago, he was a three-time Euroleague Champion with the club Jugoplastika in Split. In the team's first title game in 1989, he scored 18 points against Maccabi Tel Aviv. In 1990, he scored 20 points in the defeat of FC Barcelona, and in 1991, again versus FC Barcelona, Kukoč scored 14 points in the victory.

After being drafted by the Bulls, Kukoč remained overseas and played for Benetton Treviso. Over those seasons in Italy, he won a league championship in 1992 and an Italian Cup title in 1993, playing a total of 68 games with averages of 19.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.2 assists. Other club titles earned in his career overseas include being a four-time National Champion of Yugoslavia (1988–1991), two-time Yugoslav Cup winner (1990, 1991) and two-time Triple Crown winner (1990, 1991).

As a member of national teams, Kukoč began winning gold medals as early as the U-16 and U-18 European Championships in 1985 and 1986 for Yugoslavia. He was also a gold medalist at the U-19 World Championship in 1987. His Yugoslavian teams were also two-time gold medalist (1989, 1991) and two-time bronze medalist (1987, 1995) at the European Championship. He led the Yugoslavian National Team to a gold medal, and was named tournament MVP, in the 1990 World Basketball Championship. Yugoslavia was also a bronze medal winner in the 1994 World Championship. Kukoč was a key player in Yugoslavia's gold medal winning game vs. the USA in the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, as he scored 17 points with 10 assists in an 85-79 victory.

In his Olympic career, Kukoč won two silver medals in the Summer Olympics: one in 1988 in Seoul for Yugoslavia and the other in 1992 in Barcelona as part of the Croatian "Dream Team." He scored 16 points, had five rebounds and nine assists in the 1992 Olympic final vs. the USA's "Dream Team." He was also a member of the 1996 Croatian Olympic Team.

His individual accolades are also myriad, including being named one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players in 1991 and one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors in 2008. Kukoč is a five-time Euroscar European Player of the Year – awarded to the best male European basketball player (1990, 1991, 1994, 1996, 1998), was the Eurobasket MVP in 1991, earned the media's Mr. Europa Player of the Year award four times (1990-1992, 1996), was named the Euroleague Final Four MVP three times (1990, 1991, 1993), FIBA World Championship MVP in 1990, was a three-time Yugoslavian Sportsman of the Year (1989, 1990, 1991), and was voted Most Outstanding Player at the World Junior Championship in Bromio, Italy in 1987.

Kukoč currently serves the Bulls as Special Advisor to the President & COO.

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Toni Kukoč named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

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Three-time NBA Champion and one of the most decorated players in international basketball, Toni Kukoč, will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2021. It is long overdue and well deserved.

It was late into a difficult night. The Last Dance season—and the Bulls 1990s championship run—now was going to end in Salt Lake City. The Bulls had their chance to dance for the last time in front of their home fans in 1998; Chicago was so expectant. But the Utah Jazz had breath when Michael Jordan missed a long last chance shot with a second left. And the Utah Jazz ran out of the United Center on the way back home now trailing just 3-2 in the NBA Finals.

Phil Jackson was replaying so many moments when John Paxson wanted to talk. What about Toni for that last shot, Paxson wondered. Jackson smiled to himself. Kukoč, the Croatian sniper, had made more of those shots over the years than anyone else among these Bulls. "It was almost unreal," Jackson recalled when I spoke with him recently. "It really was beyond imagination Toni's ability to fulfill in the clutch. He would just walk into and make 25 and 30-foot shots; he was that good a distance shooter."

But even Jackson that 1998 June night had been caught up in the narrative and the notoriety. Michael Jordan, last shot, last game. Jackson was kicking himself. He knew what he should have done. "Toni was 11 for 13, had 30 points. He kept us in that game," Jackson recalled. "That was Michael's thing, the last shot. That was a big mistake on my part. Toni was a special player."

The Bulls didn't have to wait long for theirs and Jordan's dramatic moment two days later with that most magical last minute in Game 6 and posed winning shot for the sixth championship.

Kukoč's wait for immortality was somewhat longer.

But it's finally here now as the three-time Bulls champion and one of the greatest winners in the history of professional basketball—11 international titles and rings—will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class of 2021.

Ceremonies will be in September after this weekend's ceremonies to honor last year's enshrines.

"I feel enormously proud and happy," Kukoč said from Croatia upon receiving the news. "It is a perfect ending to my basketball life as a player. I went to see my old Jugoplastika Split play last week. And entering the arena reminded me of the great team I was part of in the late 1980s and 90s. I love the fact this is happening while my parents are still alive, especially my dad, who is absolutely thrilled about this award. And I'm back as a cool dad again with my kids."

Kukoč joins Jordan and Scottie Pippen as the only Bulls players in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame who played the majority of their NBA years with the Bulls.

Kukoč also finally joins in the Hall of Fame the so called Big Six of international basketball from the 1980s who were the pioneers of the European and international invasion that led to the globalization of the game that today is reflected in the NBA.

Those six are Vlade Divac, Dino Radja, Drazen Petrovic, Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis and Kukoč.

"Toni meant a lot," Divac told me last year when he still was an executive for the Sacramento Kings. "He was one the best who played in Europe, specifically, but also internationally playing for the national team. He won basically everything. Toni is one of the most important people who changed the game. He sacrificed his ego to come to the NBA. He was a big, big thing in Europe and he came here and sacrificed to be a role player.

"Dino got in (in 2018) and I got in (in 2019)," noted Divac, who played for 16 years in the NBA, mostly with the Lakers and Kings. "In all fairness, Toni deserved to be in there even before me and Dino."

History doesn't measure when as much as how much. There are few even in the Hall of Fame who can match the accumulated successes of Toni Kukoč.

It's perhaps fitting that Kukoč sacrificed with the Bulls, mostly playing power forward and even center because Kukoč's perimeter skills were occupied by pretty proficient scorers and ball handlers, like Jordan and Pippen. But Kukoc's basketball life, essentially, was one of sacrifice as the facilitator for champion teams throughout Europe and for then Yugoslavia.

So he gave to the Bulls for the good of the team. Before the early 1990s breakup of the country, Kukoč's Yugoslavia national team with the likes of Divac, Radja, Drazen Petrovic and others who played in the NBA like Zarko Paspalj, Sasha Danilovic and Stojko Vrankovic were so dominant it led to the 1992 entry of pros in the Olympics and the 1992 USA Dream Team. Other than a compilation of perhaps the best ever NBA players could not beat these skilled Europeans who were dominating international competitions.

And perhaps none was more skilled and successful than Kukoč, the 6-11 guard with the remarkable shooting range and Magic Johnson-like passing and ball handling skills. Kukoč was MVP when Yugoslavia won the FIBA Under 19 against a USA team that included future Hall of Famer Gary Payton and collegiate star Larry Johnson. His 1988 team sent the Americans with David Robinson and Mitch Richmond to a bronze medal. Toni was MVP in the 1990 Worlds when Yugoslavia beat the Americans with Alonzo Mourning and Christian Laettner. His Yugoslavia team won the World University games over a USA team with Sean Elliott, Danny Ferry and Richmond. And then even on home USA soil in Seattle, Kukoč's Yugoslavia team in the 1990 Goodwill Games defeated a USA team with the likes of Mourning, Kenny Anderson, Billy Owens and Bobby Hurley.

Toni Kukoč playing against the Boston Celtics in the 1988 McDonald's Championships in Madrid, Spain.

This was at a time Kukoč was winning basically every award in European basketball, five times best male player, three times the media's award for best player, Euroleague Final Four MVP three times, Eurobasket MVP, FIBA World Championship MVP. Make it four Yugoslavia championships, three Euroleague titles and an Italian league championship before coming to the Bulls and earning NBA Sixth Man winner in 1996 with the first of his three Bulls championship teams.

He says Kukoč still is upset with him for making him a reserve on those teams.

Which is one reason why Kukoč doesn't sound like a Hall of Famers to many Americans.

His statistics in a 13-year NBA career were pedestrian, 11.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists for mostly the Bulls and later the 76ers, Hawks and Bucks. Kukoč's highest scoring average in seven seasons with the Bulls was 18.8 with seven rebounds and 5.3 assists in the lockout season after the dynasty ended in 1998-99. The following season, Kukoč was averaging 18 points when the Bulls began their rebuilding project and traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers for a first round draft pick.

Kukoč was becoming a reliable scoring option off the bench for the 76ers team that would go to the 2001 NBA Finals when center Theo Ratliff was injured. The 76ers, then seeking a center, traded Kukoc to Atlanta to acquire Dikembe Mutombo for their run to the Finals. Kukoc finished up that season in Atlanta with his highest NBA scoring average of 19.7 per game. He played his last four seasons in Milwaukee in a reserve role so he could be closer to home. He still lives in Chicago's north suburbs and now is a team ambassador for the Bulls.

But even as Kukoč was closing out his NBA career in Milwaukee, NBA veterans knew his value.

"My assistant Frank Hamblen always used to say we need to get Toni with those Lakers teams," Jackson recalled. "Those were good Lakers teams, and when we played against Toni we never could do anything with him."

"Having A Bud" with Toni Kukoč and Bill Wennington.

It's also why Kukoč played such a significant, if often unappreciated, role with those championship Bulls teams.

Kukoč, albeit reluctantly, finally joined the Bulls for the 1993-94 season just as Michael Jordan was retiring the first time to play baseball.

Kukoč was a controversial second round pick in the 1990 draft at a time NBA teams weren't particularly welcoming to Europeans. It would play out even on the Bulls as Kukoč received a vicious hazing from Jordan and Pippen, presumably directed at then executive Jerry Krause. But also encompassing the elements of American resentment of European players being recruited and eventually paid well.

Many European stars came to the NBA and quickly left or got stuck on benches. The great Petrovic did as in Portland until being traded to the lowly Nets and getting an opportunity. Kukoč was starring and winning titles in Europe, making a lot of money. He wasn't sure about the risk.

"Would I go to a Chicago Bulls team winning a championship and I might be sitting on the bench and not playing for the best part of my career?" Kukoč wondered. "Maybe at 31 or 32, I thought it would be worth it. I wasn't sure at 24."

Toni Kukoč dunks against the Miami Heat in a game at the Untied Center in 1996.

As it happened with injuries in his first month with the Bulls, Kukoč got five starts and averaged 16 points in those games. Kukoč returned to the bench, though in the playoffs he famously won Game 3 of the conference semifinals in the game in which Pippen sat out in protest of not getting selected for the last shot. Jackson had quickly recognized how good Kukoč was with those last second desperation shots. Even better than Jordan, which was why Jackson was kicking himself about that Game 5 in the 1998 Finals.

Earlier that 1993-94 season, Reggie Miller with less than a second left made a shot for a two-point lead. Miller then famously bowed in all four directions to the fans in the Chicago Stadium. Kukoč then banked in a three at the buzzer for the winner, running off the floor triumphant as he would against the Knicks in the playoffs.

Big games and big times became common for Kukoč even as much as he was overshadowed by the circus festival of having the greatest player, the greatest sidekick, the greatest coach and the greatest miscreant on the same team. But with Dennis Rodman's suspensions and injuries, Kukoc started 87 games in the three championship seasons. He also was part of the closing lineup the Golden State Warriors would make more famous, but which Jackson originated with Rodman at center and Kukoč at power forward with Jordan, Pippen and Ron Harper. Everyone able to switch and offense coming from just about every spot in the triangle offense. It was death to opponents those last three title years.

And then there were times like Game 7 of the 1998 Eastern Conference finals with the Indiana Pacers, just the second Game 7 for the Bulls in those 90s runs. And it looked like the Last Dance would end without the final center stage dance for the champions. It was a grueling series with the Pacers, and Jordan and Pippen seemed spent. The Bulls couldn't get anything going, and the Pacers began to pull away after halftime. Until Kukoč put a stop to it, scoring 14 of the Bulls 21 points in the third quarter to keep the Bulls in the game until the Bulls could finally maintain some control in the fourth quarter.

But that was Toni, making the play so others could be remembered.

Now it's Toni's turn to step into the limelight. It's well deserved.

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Finally! Toni Kukoč named to Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's Class of 2021

Sam Smith breaks down the career of three-time Champion Toni Kukoc and why he needs to be in the Hall of Fame.

The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Tuesday revealed its finalists for the 2021 Hall of Fame class. Bill Russell, the NBA's first Black coach and first Black coach to win an NBA championship, was among the nominees in the coach category. Russell with 11 championships as a player was enshrined for his playing contributions in 1975.

The Hall of Fame, however, has yet to enshrine professional basketball's other 11-time playing champion, Toni Kukoc.

Toni Kukoc deserves to be in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. It's perhaps the gravest oversight in the history of the grand institution and an insult to worldwide basketball.

The final Class of 2021 will be revealed May 16 with selections from the so called "direct elect" committees, which include the International Committee, Men's and Women's Veterans Committees, the Early African American Pioneer Committee and the Contributor Committee. Kukoc's candidacy is considered by the International Committee.

It has previously enshrined five of the so called "Big Six" of 1980s international basketball. They led to the creation and need for the 1992 Olympic USA Dream Team and the procession of international players who are among the best in the NBA today.

Those six were Vlade Divac, Dino Radja, Drazen Petrovic, Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis and Kukoc.

Kukoc may have been the most successful in Europe with eight worldwide championships as a player, four times Yugoslavia champion, Italian League champion and three times Euroleague champion. Kukoc also was a member of three NBA championships with the Bulls.

But it was his sacrifice to accommodate the best interests of the Bulls that likely diminished his Hall of Fame possibilities.

The 6-11 Kukoc in Europe was in modern NBA parlance a wing, point forward player. For comparison, Kukoc then was Luka Doncic, the clever ballhandler and finisher who was an excellent long range shooter and passer. That position was basically filled on the Bulls by Scottie Pippen.

The Bulls needed a power forward given the unreliability of Dennis Rodman, who because of injuries and suspensions missed 45 games his first two Bulls seasons in 1996 and 1997. So Kukoc, the 1990 Bulls second round draft pick whose discovery helped make Jerry Krause a Hall of Famer, became a power forward in the era of Barkley, Malone and Kemp.

And then when Pippen missed the first half of the 1997-98 season after surgery, Phil Jackson said Kukoc was instrumental in helping hold that team together.

"He was a terrific player who has been overlooked," Jackson told me.

Kukoc driving against Lakers forward Robert Horry in December 1997.

Though Kukoc was technically a Sixth Man and won the NBA award in 1996, he made more than 80 starts for the Bulls during those three championship seasons. But because he was considered to be a reserve player, he was curiously overlooked by the International Committee when it added players of lesser impact, certainly in the NBA, like Radja, Marciulionis and Divac. Kukoc was the only one to play for an NBA champion.

Kukoc started every game in the 1998 Finals in place of Rodman and was third on the team in scoring, less than a point behind Pippen and led the team in three pointers. Kukoc averaged 22.5 points on 18 of 27 shooting and five of eight on threes in the last two games for the 1998 title playing more than 42 minutes in each game. He was known for making clutch game winners for the Bulls, like the 1994 playoff winner against the Knicks when Pippen sat out. In the 1996 Finals, Kukoc started two games and scored in double figures in all six games.

Kukoc celebrates winning the 1996 NBA Title with a victory over the Seattle Sonics.

And then there was Kukoc's unprecedented international resume.

Kukoc was Euroscar Player of the Year five times, the award for the best male European basketball player no matter where they are playing. The only six-time winners were Dirk Nowitzki and Sabonis. Among those winning fewer times were Pau Gasol. Kukoc won the media's Mr. Europa Player of the Year award three times, which was the most ever, more than Sabonis, Divac, Petrovic, Gasol and Nowitzki. Kukoc was Euroleague Final Four MVP three times, the Finals top scorer once, FIBA World Championship MVP and Eurobasket MVP.

Kukoc played on three Bulls championship teams, four Yugoslavian championship teams, an Italian League champion and three Euroleague champions, essentially the lead player on eight championship teams and a vital contributor to three NBA titles.

Players and coaches with 11 championships are basketball elite, like Russell, Jackson and Geno Auriemma in college. Henri Richard was part of 11 championship teams in hockey and Yogi Berra was as a player, manager and coach on 13 in baseball. All are Hall of Famers. It's a short list. No one associated with as many or more championships other than Kukoc hasn't been suitably and appropriately acknowledged.

Most of the top MVP candidates in the NBA this season, by the way, are international players, including Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Doncic. We now understand how exceptional professional basketball can be in Europe and around the world. Kukoc and the other pioneers are their competitor ancestors and role models.

Americans aren't so arrogant about the game anymore. Not like they once were, though it took creating the NBA's best team ever to counter the threat of the Europeans who were routinely beating the top American collegians. And this at a time when Europe was at war and countries (and teams) were being broken up.

"We started beating Americans all the time," Kukoc told me last year when he talked about the European legacy. "Italy with the junior nationals beating them soundly, Seattle (Goodwill Games). We figured, ‘OK, these are the guys we are beating every time we play them. These are the guys who are going to be the top draft picks, the future All-Stars, the guys who are going to carry the league. And we are beating them.' So it is time for us. We were sure we could play in the NBA. But even when we came here people were like, ‘They all are soft and don't play defense and they don't rebound.' Nobody said we had so many different skills other people don't. I wish I would have come here with a coach who said, ‘Here is the ball, we trust your decisions.' Like you see now with (Luka) Doncic, with (Nikola) Jokic, Giannis (Antetokounmpo). They weren't ready for us then."

The NBA now is trying to figure out how to catch up with them.

I did a podcast recently promoting Kukoc's Hall of Fame candidacy for Pod of Fame.

Maybe it might have been 12 titles If Larry Brown wasn't so impatient.

Kukoc, the native of Croatia who now is a special advisor and ambassador for the Bulls, stayed with the Bulls one more season after the championships, the 50-game 1998-99 season.

He averaged 18.8 points and seven rebounds, his Bulls highs in about 37 minutes per game starting. During the following season, he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, who were in need of a playmaker and supplemental scorer to team with Allen Iverson. Kukoc seemed ideal and the 76ers got off to the best start in the league in 2000-01 and were 40-14. But center Theo Ratliff hurt his wrist and was due to be out about a month. Rather than wait, Brown persuaded the 76ers to trade for Atlanta's Dikembe Mutombo. The 76ers did get to the Finals, but then lost in five games to the Lakers as Shaquille O'Neal battered Mutombo. Kukoc went to Atlanta in the trade. Could it have made a difference for the 76ers?

The rest of that season with Atlanta, Kukoc produced his best NBA statistics playing his natural role, averaging 19.7 points and shooting 48 percent on threes. He would have been difficult to defend in the Finals. Kukoc finished his NBA career with four seasons off the bench in Milwaukee because he didn't want to displace his family from the north suburbs of Chicago.

Toni Kukoc was a special basketball player, one of the world's greatest. The Hall of Fame presented finalists Tuesday. It's finally time for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, named for a Canadian, to provide an assist for Toni Kukoc.

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Sam Smith: Toni Kukoc deserves to be in the Hall of Fame

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